New Events Vie For Olympic Spotlight

May 28, 1990|By Phil Hersh.

Golf ``quickly`` will become an Olympic sport. Triathlon has a good chance of earning such status. Those are the views of Robert Helmick, president of the U.S. Olympic Committee and member of the International Olympic Committee`s executive board.

On the surface, Helmick`s ideas seem in direct conflict with the expressed desire of IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch to reduce the size of the Summer Olympics. Samaranch recently spoke of a 10,000-athlete limit for the Summer Games, and that limit will be reached at Barcelona, Spain, in 1992. So how can Helmick talk of adding sports?

``We can do it and still stay within the limit by checking the credibility of the athletes who are being entered,`` Helmick said during a recent meeting with Tribune editors and reporters.

``There have been many countries who get officials accredited as athletes. Some of those, like the 45-year-old Soviet swimmers, we won`t see anymore (because they were actually secret police agents).

``We can also limit the number a country can have in each sport. In swimming, for instance, the rule now allows each country to have one entrant in every event, no matter the athlete`s qualifications. We could change that to allow each country a minimum of, say, three in swimming unless they meet qualifying standards.``

Helmick, immediate past president of the International Swimming Federation, knows there is pressure on sports like swimming, track and crew to cut the number of events they have in the Olympics. He thinks such cuts are both unnecessary and a potential quagmire.

from two to one might not cut any athletes, since most of them probably compete in both.``

It would be easy to reduce the size of the Summer Games by moving sports such as boxing or volleyball to the Winter Olympics, which need more events. But the IOC insists only events contested on snow or ice can be in the Winter Games, even though the Olympic Charter contains no such provision.

Whatever the case, golf-which almost made it in Barecelona-could debut in the centennial modern Games of 1996.

- Good news for gymnastics fans: A clean sweep of the titles at the recent European Championships has convinced Svetlana Boguinskaia of the Soviet Union to change her retirement plans.

Boguinskaia, 17, the reigning world champion in all-around and floor exercise, had decided previously to trade gym tights for ballet tights after this summer`s Goodwill Games in Seattle. But her performance at the European meet in Athens led her to say she ``surely`` will continue through the 1991 World Championships in Indianapolis and probably through the 1992 Olympics.

At the 1988 Olympics, she won gold medals in the team event and the vault, a silver in floor exercise and a bronze all-around.

Boguinskaia, a Ukrainian, was the first woman since Vera Caslavska of Czechoslovakia in 1967 to win all five European events: all-around, balance beam, vault, uneven bars and floor exercise. She received four perfect 10s, two in vault, one on the beam and one in floor exercise.

- Brandy Johnson, the top U.S. gymnast, also has decided to press on after contemplating retirement because of health problems.

Johnson, 17, of Altamonte Springs, Fla., came close to quitting in March, when she finished 21st in the all-around preliminaries at the McDonald`s American Cup.

That performance, it turned out, owed largely to weakness from a three-month bout with kidney stones. Before that, she had missed a couple months of training with torn ankle ligaments suffered at last year`s World Championships, where she was the only U.S. medalist (silver in vault).

Since the kidney problem was diagnosed and cured, Johnson has been able to return to full training. She will defend her title in the U.S. Gymnastics Championships June 7-10 in Denver, where she hopes to earn a spot on the U.S. team for the Goodwill Games.

- Both of the Chicago area`s veteran weight-lifting worthies, Rich Schutz of Mount Prospect and Jeff Michels of Chicago, have been named to the U.S. team for the Goodwill Games. Schutz, in the 242.5 pound class, and Michels, in unlimited, each added another national title to his long awards list earlier this month.

- For those wondering about the change in Celena Mondie`s name to Mondie-Milner . . . no, the Illinois sprint star didn`t get married. She added the Milner in January to honor her stepfather, James, a Baptist minister in her home of Milledgeville, Ga.

Mondie-Milner wanted to make the change earlier, but her natural father wouldn`t allow it, even though he was divorced from Mondie`s mother when their daughter was 2. So she had to wait until legal adulthood, age 21.

In her first season as Mondie-Milner, the senior won four Big 10 titles outdoors last weekend and three indoors in March. Her collegiate career ends with this week`s NCAA Championships in Raleigh, N.C.

``It`s sad this is over, but at least I`ll be able to keep training with my teammates,`` said Mondie-Milner, who needs one more year to earn her degree in speech communications.